Loeckenhoff reaps early career award in gerontology

August 13, 2014

Loeckenhoff

Corinna Loeckenhoff, associate professor of human development, is the 2014 recipient of the Margret M. and Paul B. Baltes Foundation Award in Behavioral and Social Gerontology from The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) – the nation’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging.

This annual award, which Loeckenhoff will receive at GSA’s 67th Annual Scientific Meeting, Nov. 5-9 in Washington, D.C., recognizes outstanding early career contributions in behavioral and social gerontology.

Loeckenhoff directs the Laboratory for Healthy Aging in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell. She has published more than 35 refereed journal articles, many in the flagship journals in psychology and aging. Her groundbreaking research revolves around age differences in socio-emotional functioning and their implications for health-related decision-making and outcomes. Recently she has focused on translating findings from laboratory-based decision-making paradigms to real-world health care settings.

Her work also has major implications for understanding barriers to optimal decision-making among older adults and their family members who face challenging choices in the face of life-threatening illnesses. Her research program focuses on the role of stressful life events, social relationships, and balancing present and future well-being.

Her work, at an early career stage, has contributed to understanding age differences in time horizons, personality and emotion. In addition, she has done fundamental research on lifelong trajectories in personality traits and social cognition. Particularly notable, Loeckenhoff’s work has shed new light on the impact of these phenomena on mental and physical health, with attention to cultural differences.

Loeckenhoff received her undergraduate degree from the University of Marburg in Germany (1999) and a Ph.D. in personality psychology from Stanford University (2004).